


That Which is Savage; That Which Used to Be

by spectrawaves



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, The pevensies are Not Okay, i wrote this in merely an hour, is it poetry? Is it prose? Is it story? Nope its an exploration of trauma, which is on brand for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:42:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29818218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrawaves/pseuds/spectrawaves
Summary: The children are not the Kings and Queens of old. Narnia wakes when their feet touch her soil for the first time in centuries. The land is savage now, and the children had missed all that had been savage then, and all that no longer was.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	That Which is Savage; That Which Used to Be

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my new hyperfixation. i love it here. something came over me and this is what happened. thanks for hangin

The weight was different. 

That was to be expected, of course, but Edmund wasn't as prepared for it as he should have been. 

Swordplay had been instinctual to him, it had been in his bones. But the bones he had now were not the same as the bones he'd had then.

When he'd last swung a sword he'd been fourteen years older and King Edmund, The Just. Now he was just Edmund, and his body knew how to swing a sword, but no longer knew how to lift one. 

So when Edmund went to prove Peter's point to Trumpkin, he faltered. Luckily Trumpkin had expected him to falter, had expected him to fumble, to  _ fail, _ and so he hadn't taken the golden opportunity Edmund had unwillingly presented. 

Edmund wouldn't make that mistake again. Edmund didn't make mistakes twice when it came to his siblings or to Narnia herself. He'd put them in enough danger already. 

\----

Lucy laid on her stomach and combed her fingers through the grass, aching to hear the whispers ever-present in her Narnia. Aching to hear the tittering laughs of flowers on the wind, the quiet, lovely  _ shush  _ of leaves caressing one another. 

When she heard nothing, when Narnia remained as silent and lifeless as England felt, Lucy wept. 

And then Narnia herself rose to cradle her youngest queen, magic long since gone unused waking at the sounds of distress from her very first Daughter of Eve. And Lucy curled around that which she loved most ardently and sobbed. 

Narnia held her queen and Lucy's ever-curious, ever-affectionate, ever-marvelling fingers wound themselves into blades of grass now warm with life, and they leaned into her reverent touch. 

Narnia took her first breath in centuries. 

\----

The terrain was the most familiar she'd ever felt underfoot, more familiar than England had ever been, and yet every step felt different. 

Susan weighed less. She was shorter, more petite, the body of now less accustomed to shifting rocks and slippery moss than the body of then had been. 

And when Narnia filled her lungs with cold, salted air, it rattled in lungs that suddenly felt too big for the body of now, like Narnia was trying to fill her to the capacity Narnia had known, and not that which Susan now had. 

The body of now wasn't the body that had touched Narnia's soil last, and it no longer knew how. 

\----

Peter tried not to listen when Trumpkin spoke of them.

All too familiar were the words of the battlefield, those which said the High King was a ruthless man, savage and efficient in his violence. 

And all too easy to guess were the words spoken in legends, those which told of the High King's battles, of each of his wins, because the High King never lost. 

But Peter had. He'd lost more than he knew how to count, lost over and over and over again, because High King Peter the Magnificent, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, Sir Peter Wolf's-Bane was just Peter Pevensie. 

Peter was not a king of old. Peter was fourteen, carrying a sword and a title that he'd forgotten how to wield. 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a heart in the comments it will make mine go ✨❤✨


End file.
